LOWELL, Mass.—Massachusetts’ highest court ruled last year that municipalities can’t require businesses to install just one type of fire alarm system when the state building code allows for four choices. But the city of Lowell contends that decision doesn’t apply to it.

LOWELL, Mass.—This city may end up paying rebates to property owners after it required them to buy fire alarm boxes from just one vendor, preventing them from purchasing the boxes more cheaply from other sources, according to newspaper reports.

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass.—After a three-year legal battle, the industry emerged victorious in a case in which the city of Springfield was mandating that commercial and other buildings have a municipally-connected fire alarm system that uses a radio box instead of other types of systems allowed by the state’s building code.